A vegetarian's switch to a more sustainable life.

Nomad Life // The Quest for an Apartment

I truly cannot and I partially refuse to believe that I only have 36 days left until I walk across the stage, flip my tassel and am handed a diploma. People always ask me: “Are you excited to graduate or nervous or sad?” And really, it totally depends on the day. This week the trend is all over the place — my answer changes hourly. At present, I am feeling ready. My remote work for my job is going great, I am finishing up my last few assignments and am even going back to Elkhart this weekend (tomorrow, actually) with my Mom and sister to visit a handful of apartment complexes and (hopefully) sign on one that I can call home for the foreseeable future.

See you soon, Indiana.

While all of this is soexciting for me, my stress levels are at an all-time high. Trying to find a place to live while dealing with finishing up my degree is overwhelming, to say the very least. It’s also a really reflective time for me — while I am ready to leave and show the world what this soon to be alumna can do (that’s me, by the way) and make new friends at my awesome job (I am so in love with it, if you can’t tell), I am also really sad to leave behind the people I have gotten close with during my stay at Truman — with special attention to the people I have gotten close with these last two semesters. It’s so bittersweet and I know there will be many, many posts about it to come.

But, it’s also exciting because I get to explore a totally awesome and unfamiliar place and make it my own. That’s why I can’t wait to spend a little bit of time there this weekend and check out life outside of the newsroom. I got a small taste of that during my visit in March, as you will all recall, but most of my time was spent meeting everyone and getting acclimated to our office. Hopefully I can convince my Mom and sister to try The Moringa Tree again — I have been craving it since my visit weeks ago. Mmmmmm.

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Okay, so ever since Rowen made those awesome fajitas a few weekends ago, I have not been able to get them out of my head! I have been on quite a kick and I 100 percent blame him:

Eating the spectrum for fajitas.

I raided the store of all of its mushrooms, peppers, avocados, beans, cilantro, limes and salsa to make fajitas for myself and I am so glad I did. As mentioned in my description, I have an irrational, awful fear of onions and I have ever since I can remember. Like, I don’t even want to look at them. Don’t ask why, because I really don’t know the answer to it myself. All I know is something magical happens when you combine four types of peppers, mushrooms and spices in a skillet with olive oil and roll it up in a whole wheat tortilla.

Fajitas by Danielle…and inspired by #FoodByRowen

I am not 100 percent in love with this photo for a few reasons: the first being iPhone photography in my kitchen is the actual worst and also WordPress seems to have changed its CMS a bit and I don’t have time to fiddle with resizing this at the moment — but I intend to figure it out! Anyway, I made my favorite homemade guacamole to spread on the fajita: lime, half of one avocado and cilantro to taste (I like a lot of it).

Coincidentally, a few friends from a class of mine and I went out to dinner at La Fuente, one of the Mexican restaurants here. I had, surprise surprise, a fajita and picked around the onions [shudder]. It was digustingly rainy and cold yesterday and after an especially long class, it was nice to laugh over fajitas and margaritas with some of the people I am going to miss the most after May 10. After dinner, we all went to Rowen’s house to have dessert, provided by my friend Scott. Scott was texting me the night before asking me about different ingredients and whether they were vegan friendly or not. So you can imagine my delight when he shows up with this beauty:

Delicious and vegan pie that Scott brought.

It was all vegan — key lime with homemade crust and fruit and it was spectacular. It really meant so, very much to me that he was so thoughtful to bring something vegan-friendly and asked me about certain ingredients to be sure. I am so lucky to have such supportive friends and family who can share in something I love so much. Thanks again, Scott!

So, the usual question: what’s next? I am leaving town in like four hours to drive back home, unpack a few things, eat and sleep. Tomorrow morning, my Mom and I are driving up to the Chicago area to pick up my sister and continue on to the beautiful state of Indiana. Saturday begins the apartment hunt and hopefully I will have an address in the 46516 by the end of the day that day. Sunday is back to Illinois for Denise and back to St. Louis for my mom and me and FINALLY back to Kirksville for me. Let the marathon driving begin.

Stay beautiful and send good vibes for an apartment my way, please! You’re all lovely.